The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth
by Aurora West
Summary: Most days, Taffyta felt like she'd figured out how to be twenty-five. But then suddenly, everything would be just as confusing as it was the day she'd woken up to Sugar Rush's upgrade. Three-shot bridge between Peripeteia and The Rest of Forever.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: _Wreck-It Ralph _and _Ralph Breaks the Internet _are the property of the Walt Disney Company. All other copyrighted characters and games are the properties of their respective creators. Title from Shakespeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream._

Author's note: Hi there! Have you read Terminal, Fallout, and Peripeteia? This fic, while not _necessarily _part of that series, is sort of fic 3.5, between Peripeteia and The Rest of Forever. I recommend reading my WIR fics in order, which you can find on my profile.

* * *

Swizzle had a girlfriend.

This was a shocking development for like, any number of reasons, so when Taffyta saw them kissing for the first time in Game Central Station, she thought her reaction was 100% justified. Sure, she lost the top two scoops of the ice cream cone she was eating and got strawberry ice cream all over her gloves to save the bottom scoop, and sure, she stopped so fast in her tracks that Candlehead and even Rancis crashed right into her, but like, come _on_. Swizzle. A _girlfriend. _Two days later, Rancis was still complaining to her about the knot on his head every time he rolled up next to her at the starting line for each race, and her response was the same every time: "But _Swizz has a girlfriend._"

Then the race would start and she wouldn't have to think about it for three minutes.

Taffyta tossed a spent lollipop stick to the ground as she leaned against her kart waiting for the next quarter alert, staring at her feet. Her legs still looked weird to her. They were…longer, and had this shape that seemed out of place. Like the way the _DDR _characters looked, but on them it was normal. Not that Taffyta, or any of the _Sugar Rush _racers, looked like the characters from _DDR_. Ha, she wished. Or…did she? She didn't know, because the whole thing was just still so weird, even nearly seven months after the upgrade.

It wasn't just that she looked different. She saw the world differently. Things that she'd cared about before didn't seem as important now, replaced by an entirely new set of concerns. And even the things that she still cared about, she cared about in a different way. She _thought _about stuff differently—her whole brain felt different. Trying to articulate it even in her head sounded stupid, because how did you talk about going from nine years old to twenty-five literally overnight? She didn't have the vocabulary.

A kart engine grumbled behind her and she glanced over to see Candlehead staring at the steering wheel of the Ice Screamer in intense concentration, her hand on the gear stick while she revved the engine. "Taff, does my kart sound funny to you?" she asked.

Taffyta glanced up at the cabinet's screen but couldn't see anyone preparing to play imminently. It was always slow in the middle of the day, and it was March, so all the kids had just gone back to school after spring break. She could take some time to help Candlehead. Ambling over, she said, "A little bit. What's up?"

Candlehead's eyes narrowed in concentration. "I don't know, it's like this…do you hear it? Like a weird kind of…trilling sound?"

She gunned it and Taffyta listened hard, wrinkling her forehead, only looking up as someone yelled from the side of the track, "Candlehead, do you _mind? _I'm doing my mindfulness and it's _really _hard with you making all that noise!"

Gloyd smirked as he walked by Crumbelina, eating a handful of candy corn and saying, "You should try it during a race, maybe you would've seen those Sprinkle Spikes that way?"

Crumbelina didn't look very mindful. "Shut up."

Taffyta smirked and turned her attention back to Candlehead, who didn't seem to have heard any of this. Looking worried, Candlehead said, "She seems kinda sluggish, too. Oh, why did this have to happen in the middle of the day? I don't have any time to figure it out and fix it between races!"

"You could let someone take your roster spot," Taffyta said innocently.

At that, Candlehead looked up. "_Taffyta_," she said, her tone outraged.

"Ooh, that _was _kind of low," another voice said behind her. Taffyta looked over her shoulder to see King Candy leaning against his kart, one arm slung over the high-backed seat. "Must be that third place 'win' catching up with you."

Taffyta made a face at him as Candlehead asked, "King Candy, do _you _think my kart sounds weird?"

"Soundsth like the valve train," he said casually.

"It's _not_," Candlehead replied in frustration. "I _just _checked it the other day and it's fine. Ugh!"

Leaving Candlehead to it, Taffyta turned to face King Candy, smiling a little. "You know, I wouldn't talk, Your Majesty. Didn't _you _get ninth place earlier today? And if I'm doing the math right, that means you came in last."

Putting a gloved hand over his heart, he said, "And that was a _really _low blow. If you recall, there was a _four_-year-old playing who couldn't even see the screen."

She shrugged, pursing her lips to fight the wicked smile threatening to spread across her face. "It still looks the same on the stats." It was kind of funny, when she thought about it, that of everything in the game, he was the constant these days. Everyone else had changed, grown up, but not him. Well, technically he _had _grown, since at his request she'd coded him to be the same height as her after the upgrade had made her a foot taller, but she wouldn't have known unless she'd…well, known.

The upgrade had brought him closer into the fold that the rest of the racers already shared, too. That had already been happening slowly after _Sugar Rush _had been reset and he'd been revealed not as a king at all, but a game-jumping usurper. At least, it had started happening once everyone had stopped being afraid of him. But even if he had never really been a king, well, he was still a _grown-up_. But the upgrade had been the great equalizer where that was concerned, and though none of them ever really _forgot _who King Candy was—or had been, or was trying not to be—well, he'd been one of them for so long that in the end the pull of emotional inertia was too strong to overcome.

"It's definitely _not _the valve train," Candlehead announced in a muffled voice. Her head was buried in the hood of her kart, and Taffyta heard her ask, "Do you want ice cream or something? But I _can't _give ice cream to you, it'll make your gears slip!"

King Candy raised an eyebrow. "Maybe some frozen yogurt?"

"Ew, gross," Candlehead replied without bothering to look up.

Taffyta giggled at Candlehead, then turned back to King Candy, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her lips at him. "So, did you notice we have the exact same number of golds today?"

His face lit up and the competitive gleam in his eyes was unmistakable. "Do we really?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, we'll have to change _that_," he said, rubbing his hands together with glee. "You know nature abhors a tie."

Taffyta wrinkled her nose. "I don't think that's the saying."

He waved a hand, and at that moment, there was the unmistakable sound of voices approaching the cabinet. "Sweet, it's free! Man, I hope Vanellope's on the roster today—"

The quarter alert blared through the game, and as it did, Taffyta shot a look at King Candy. His emotions, changeable as always, had flipped a switch from ebullient to pensive as looked up at the cabinet's screen, where it was possible to see a faint overlay of the avatar selection screen.

"—aw, she's not."

"Maybe she's not in the game anymore since Mr. Litwak installed that update," another gamer's voice said.

"No, I'm pretty sure she disappeared before that…"

"_Glitch_," King Candy muttered under his breath as the player finally selected an avatar—Candlehead, who squeaked that her kart wasn't ready yet and why couldn't they just have waited a few more hours—and made all of them scramble for their karts.

As Taffyta started hers, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Now that _Sugar Rush _had been unplugged once, he was even more sensitive to any perceived disinterest from the gamers. Maybe 'sensitive' wasn't the right word. Paranoid, then. Yeah, that sounded more like it. There were undeniably fewer players than there had been ten years ago, but everyone in the arcade complained about the same thing. Gamers skewed older; people who'd played when they were kids in the 90s who'd come back in adulthood to recapture part of their childhood.

That was the kind of sentence that Taffyta would have been able to articulate prior to the upgrade, but not to really _understand_. She got it now, though. Sometimes she wanted to recapture her lost childhood, too, even though hers hadn't been the same kind of ephemeral, fleeting time that the gamers experienced. She'd been nine years old for twenty-two years, and then, overnight, she was twenty-five. Still, it sometimes felt like it had been less complicated, even though that definitely hadn't been true.

"Hey," she said as the marshmallow floated into position at the starting line. When King Candy glanced at her, she grinned with just a _tinge _of wickedness. "I was going to say don't worry, except maybe if you're busy thinking about something else, it'll make it easier for me to win."

"Oh ho, _really_," he shot back, looking delighted. Present him with a challenge, and he almost always snapped out of a funk. Easy as pie.

The light turned yellow and she flashed him a victory sign, still grinning smugly.

As the signal blipped from yellow to green, tires squealed, engines roared, and all nine racers rocketed away from the starting line in a cloud of exhaust and cocoa dust.

Chocolate Town had undergone a few minor tweaks when the game had been upgraded. The buildings were taller and the track wound twice more through alleys than it had previously. There were tons of balconies hanging over the road now, too, with cotton candy laundry dangling over the track that had to be dodged. There were also honey pot beehives all over the meadow just outside town, and if you got too close to them, they'd chase you away to protect the Bit o' Honey inside. They were definitely programmed to be meaner in this specific spot because the ones in Strawberry Fields had never bothered Taffyta.

It was a track that technically speaking wasn't difficult. But the hazards made it easy to play dirty, and the _Sugar Rush _characters were the most vicious racers in the arcade. Taffyta swore as she swerved around a flapping sheet hanging from a balcony, only to hit the strategically placed Sprinkle Spikes that someone had left there. Rancis, Snowanna, and King Candy blew by her before she got going again. The sheet tangled itself around the front of Pink Lightning for a second and Taffyta fought the drag, then finally accelerated past it.

Then, she had to make a decision—take the shortcut through the maze of alleys or stay on the track and snag a power-up?

Instinct made the decision for her and she cranked the wheel hard to the right, sending her kart careening down a narrow, cobblestoned alley. Two more hard right turns and she could see the track—Jubileena, in first, zoomed by, then Candlehead, in second. Taffyta held her foot down on the pedal and shot out of the alley, drifting around the ninety-degree corner and hearing tires squeal as the rest of the roster braked and swerved around her.

She met King Candy's eyes and flashed him a smug smile as she gunned it and pulled ahead of him. Now, to catch up with Candlehead and Jubileena. She heard the whizz of a Sugar Rush behind her and glanced in her mirror. Just Minty, coming up from ninth place.

She burst through a power-up and cycled through a mental list of the best places to drop the Sticky Slick that it settled on. Then, a flash of movement in her mirror caught her eye. "Are you kidding me?" she muttered. King Candy and Crumbelina both had A La Mode power-ups, and since they were in the meadow now, they also both had an unobstructed shot at her. Oh well, nothing like a challenge.

Narrowing her eyes, she kept one eye on the track in front of her and one on the two of them in her mirror as they both launched a scoop of ice cream towards her. The calculation of the scoops' trajectories was automatic and she shifted, getting just enough speed out of her kart to shoot underneath the ice cream as both scoops plummeted to the ground. They both splattered on the road just behind her and she felt a glob of cold wetness land on the back of her neck and slide under the neckline of her jacket and dress.

Not that it made her safe from either of them. Especially not King Candy. There wasn't much doubt who would win their jockeying for position. By halfway through lap two, as Taffyta streaked through the town's alleys, still in third place, Crumbelina had fallen back and King Candy was right on Pink Lightning's tail. She tucked her elbows in and leaned low over the steering wheel, but he still pulled alongside her.

"So," he said cheerfully, leaning an arm on the side of his kart.

She spared a glance at him out of the corner of her eye as they both whipped past a hanging cotton candy sheet that hadn't been there on lap one. "What?" she asked in a bored tone.

His tone casual, he said, "I was thinking—malted _milk _ballsth, those Sprinkle Spikes are still there—anyhoo, I was thinking, two heads are better than one, right? And I'm not talking about the fact that I have two faces, hoo-hoo—the thing is, if we team up, we could take those two _down_."

They rounded the final corner in the town and Taffyta looked over at him again. "_You _want to team up? During a _race?_" She laughed. "And you think I'm going to fall for that?"

"What? No! I mean, yes, it's not—" He swerved to grab a power-up since Jubileena and Candlehead had taken the middle two and Taffyta nabbed the next closest one. Well, that was something, he hadn't tried to steal hers. Returning his kart to parallel hers again and downshifting to stay next to her—show-off, yeah yeah, she got it, his kart was faster—he said, "Seriously. Want to give it a try? I'm just going to beat you if you don't take me up on this one."

"Oh yeah?" She watched a bee dive for Jubileena, but the other racer avoided it. Its path back to its hive might bring it close enough that it would set its sights on Taffyta, too. "So who wins if we team up?"

Unconcernedly, he waved a hand. "Oh, _plenty _of time to figure that out."

Another fifty-seven seconds, to be exact. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. "What did you have in mind?"

He grinned brightly. "Dependsth on the power-up you just got."

"Sweet seeker."

"Well look at that. Same here."

The bee dove and both of them swerved out of its way. For just a moment its angry buzzing was louder in her ears than her kart's engine, but soon it fell back, unable to keep up with her. In a moment, they'd cross the starting line for the final lap. Only forty-six seconds to decide. Rancis, Candlehead, and Taffyta had driven as a pack often enough during the Random Roster Race, but Taffyta was the one in control in those situations. If she wanted them to do something, they'd do it. She was a better racer than them.

This was different. As much as she wanted to think she was just as good as King Candy, she knew that he was just the tiniest, barest bit superior to her. It kind of felt like taking charity to team up.

Forty-four seconds. On the other hand, the two of them could bring down at least one of the leading racers, and that was at least one place better than she was in at the moment. She made a decision. "Okay. If we take them out in the meadow, the bees will get them and slow them down even more. We can't be more than a second or two behind them when we get Candlehead or else we won't have time to hit Jubileena."

He shifted. "My thoughtsth exactly."

When he accelerated past her, she upshifted too, tailing him closely through Chocolate Town. Jubileena got a Sticky Slick, but there was no way Candlehead, King Candy, or Taffyta were going to hit _that_. Whatever Candlehead got, she didn't use. Taffyta watched the other racer's face reflected in the Ice Screamer's side mirror, and then, pursing her lips, yelled to King Candy, "Hey!" When he slowed slightly and dropped back, she said, "Candlehead has a Sugar Rush."

"How do you know?" he asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

Taffyta kept her eyes on the road. They were about to leave the town and burst into the meadow. "She has a tell. And that's one of _my _tricks, so I'm keeping it to myself."

"Hoohoohoo! Fair enough, my dear."

Nodding to him, she said, "Let's go."

He gave her a wicked grin, accelerated a kart-length past her, and fired his Sweet Seeker.

Candlehead saw it coming and used her Sugar Rush, blowing past Jubileena, who wailed as she saw the Sweet Seeker homing in on her in her mirrors. She went up in a cloud of brightly colored smoke and glitter, and before they passed her, King Candy had slammed on his brakes to fall into third place, behind Taffyta.

Candlehead was laughing. Taffyta smiled smugly. "Sorry, pal," she said, and fired.

They were so close to each other that Candlehead barely had time to scream before the Sweet Seeker slammed into her, sending her kart rolling end over end towards a bee hive. Taffyta raised one triumphant fist into the air and steered across the finish line in first with one hand on the wheel. King Candy crossed the finish line half a second behind her, followed by Crumbelina in third.

She slammed on her brakes and turned Pink Lightning one hundred and eighty degrees to face King Candy, and as she took her helmet off, she said, "Did you just let me win?"

Waving a hand, he said, "_Please_, Taffyta, I never _let _anyone win. What do you think this is? I'm not running a program for disadvantaged racers, here."

She stuck her tongue out at him and he echoed the gesture, laughing when she grinned at him. Then, another quarter alert blared through the game, and the day's nine avatars prepared for the next race. And then Taffyta remembered again—Swizzle had a _girlfriend_. "Rancis!" she said in an aggrieved tone.


	2. Chapter 2

"You're getting pretty good at this," Calhoun said approvingly, as Taffyta dropped five Cy-bugs in a row.

Taffyta pushed her helmet up off her face. It was stuffy in there. "Thanks," she said with a grin. She'd been thinking the same thing herself, but hearing it from Calhoun was better.

Kohut, standing off to one side as extra security against any Cy-bugs that got too close, winked at Taffyta and said, "I think she's almost ready to join the Corps, Sir."

Making a face, Taffyta said, "Yeah, I appreciate that, but I think I'll stick to racing. I'm not super into the whole aesthetic here."

Shaking her head and smiling, Calhoun said, "Well, want to take out another hatch brood, or have you had enough target practice for tonight?"

Taffyta slung the rifle over her shoulder. "I better get back and get a few hours of sleep before the arcade opens. Are we still doing dinner next week? Candlehead and Rancis can make it too." There was no point in mentioning King Candy. Calhoun wouldn't extend the invitation to him, and he probably wouldn't accept it even if she did. Honestly, Taffyta was pretty sure that he was a little afraid of Calhoun.

"Can't wait," Calhoun said.

The two of them and Kohut packed their gear up, returning it to the armory, and then Calhoun and Taffyta headed out to Game Central Station together. Felix was waiting at the train station to meet them. His face lit up when he saw Calhoun and Taffyta stifled a smile. They were so in love. What would it be like to have someone look at you that way? Like you were the only thing in the world that mattered? Taffyta had been asked out several times since _Sugar Rush's _upgrade, but she'd turned all of them down. She wasn't interested in them, and she didn't want to date someone she wasn't interested in. What she wanted—someday—was what Felix and Calhoun had. The way they'd somehow, like, _known_. Or sensed that there was something special about the other.

"Evenin', lady love," Felix said gallantly, kissing Calhoun's hand. Then, looking at Taffyta, he asked, "So, what was the final, er, body count tonight?"

Calhoun put a hand on Taffyta's shoulder and said proudly, "Ten hatch broods. Kohut and I didn't have to fire on a single one of them."

"Well, that's…" Felix never looked exactly sure if he should praise this sort of bloodthirstiness or not. "That's…mighty fine shooting, Taffyta."

Grinning at him, she said, "Thanks, Felix." She had a good four or five inches on him now, so she had to look down. Quickly, she gave Calhoun a hug, and Felix too, for good measure, and said, "I'll see you guys later. Have a good night!"

With a wave, she bounded off. _Hero's Duty _was fun, but she couldn't wait to get back to _Sugar Rush_, like always. Her kart was waiting for her at the outlet, and she hopped in and steered for home.

It was dark in _Sugar Rush _when she got back. Their day/night cycle that they'd gotten with the upgrade wasn't a full twenty-four hours, it was something fifteen hours and forty-two minutes (Minty had timed it once. Rancis had said how cool it was that she'd done it, and Taffyta had snickered, then teased him that he had a crush on her). Clouds covered the moon and stars, but the Rainbow Bridge and main road through the game were lit with gumdrop lanterns. Once she turned off the road into Strawberry Fields, however, she flipped her high beams on to see.

The house was a blaze of light when she approached it, so she knew King Candy was there and still awake. When she came in, he was sitting in the living room, a coding terminal on his lap while his fingers skittered across it. There was a smile on his face and he was humming to himself.

"You seem happy about something," Taffyta remarked as she closed the door.

He stopped humming and twisted around in the chair. There was a pleased, almost smug look on his face, and she couldn't help smiling. His happiness was infectious and always had been, though lately she seemed even more affected by it. Maybe it was just his smile. She'd been noticing more and more that she really liked it. Like, not just the fact that he was happy, but the way it looked, and how there was this bright, quick intelligence in his eyes, and his whole face kind of lit up, and…it didn't really make any sense, it wasn't like his smile had _changed_. But she felt something weird and tingly in her stomach now.

"I am," he said. "You know that feeling you get when you pull something off that you thought was probably never going to happen again?"

"Er…" She thought about it as she came into the living and sat on the sofa. Everything she did, she was confident that she could repeat. "Not really. Did you find a shortcut or something that you'd forgotten?"

He opened his mouth to respond, then stopped and said, "Wait a second, you think I'd _forget _about a shortcut?" When she just shrugged, he shook his head and said, "Anyway, no. If you really must know, someone just agreed to go on a date with me."

The house got weirdly silent. Or was that just her ears? Why did the room suddenly feel so tiny? And also…huge? Was she too big for the space or too small? And had time just stopped, or…or wait, no, she'd been holding the same weird look on her face for like the past forty-five seconds, hadn't she? Oh god, it was like, some bizarre, grin-y rictus, wasn't it?

She had to say something. Somehow, he hadn't noticed yet that she was acting like an assorted nut. "Oh," was what she came up with. And then, "Um." Wow, great, really articulate. What the heck was _wrong _with her? Finally, inspiration. "Who—who are you going out with?"

He flicked his hand, "That Kula woman from that new fighting game Litwak plugged in. _SNK Heroines_? The whole going Turbo business doesn't seem to matter as much to any of them."

"Yeah, because they don't really get what it means," she said before she could stop herself.

There was a flash of something in his eyes that she didn't see directed at her very often, if she'd ever seen it at all—irritation. She forced herself not to recoil. It wasn't a nice feeling to be on the receiving end of that look.

But it was gone as quickly as it appeared, and he snorted in sardonic amusement. "Guessth I'm sort of taking advantage of her naïveté, right?"

"No, I didn't mean that," Taffyta said, feeling miserable without understanding why. There was a twisting feeling in her stomach that she couldn't pin down.

Some of his ebullience seemed to have flattened out at her reaction, though. He shrugged. "I guess it's true, though."

Great, now she felt bad. Well, she'd already been feeling bad, but now she felt bad for raining on his parade, too. "No, it's—I mean, it's really great." She gave him the most unconvincing smile of her entire life. "I hope you have fun."

He fiddled with one of the lace cuffs of his shirt. "Thanks."

For a moment she was silent. She wanted to ask a bunch of stuff that she knew she shouldn't. So she wouldn't. Yeah. Good. She'd just keep her mouth shut, and everything would be fine. Her stomach would stop tying itself up in knots any minute now.

Except she couldn't keep her mouth shut. "So like," she said, "have you been going on dates this entire time?"

Raising an eyebrow, he said, "Define 'this entire time.' There'sth been, you know, sort of a dry spell the past seven years. Longer than that, to be perfectly honest."

That uncomfortable twisting feeling in Taffyta's stomach was getting worse. At least he hadn't looked annoyed at her this time. "I mean, have you been going on dates and I just…didn't know about it?"

He chuckled. "Listen, I consider myself lucky to have found _one _person in this arcade willing to see me. You know, in a romantic sense, though I guess I also mean see me in the sense that most people around here don't see me as fully human." He cocked his head at her. "So no."

She had to say something. He was looking at her, the expression in his eyes more and more probing, and suddenly the idea of him questioning why she cared was terrifying. Why _did _she care? She wasn't sure, but she knew deep in her code that she absolutely did _not _want him asking her about it. "Oh," she said, fiddling with the zipper on her jacket. Something hard and aching rose into her chest as she thought, _But I see you as human. I always have._ Trying to smile, she forced herself to say, "Well, hopefully…hopefully it'll go really well, and…and you'll like her."

"Well, I already like her," he said, flicking a wrist. "Wasn't that obviousth?"

Misery settled in a deep, heavy pit in her stomach. "Yeah," she said. "Totally." Smiling was the hardest thing she'd ever done, like her face was encased in molasses. He didn't seem to notice. "When are you going out with her?"

"Tomorrow," he said breezily. Then, he stretched and stood up. "Well, time to work on the old kart—you're not allowed in the garage for the next two hours, by the way, this mod is need-to-know basis and—hoo-hoo—you don't need to know."

She forced herself to laugh, but turned away as he went out the door. What the heck was wrong with her? What did she care if he went out with someone? It wasn't like they spent all their time together, she wasn't missing out on quality time with him or something.

But…she was also used to being the most important person in his life. If he dated this Kula lady, they could like…keep going out, and maybe eventually get married, and then where would Taffyta be?

She'd be chopped candied fruit, that was where she'd be.

_Okay, wait. Slow down. _There was nothing wrong with him having a life and nothing wrong with Taffyta playing a different role in it. Theoretically. Right. That was a very adult conclusion to come to, and she was an adult. Actually, she was proud of herself now. Yeah. It was fine. She'd figured out why she'd felt so weird about him going on a date and successfully resolved it.

As an experiment, she closed her eyes and imagined him holding hands with this woman. Her stomach twisted itself into a sick knot and she snapped her eyes open. So, maybe not so resolved.

Maybe the problem was that _she _hadn't ever been out on a date. Maybe if she did, it wouldn't feel quite as much like she was being left out.

Taffyta drummed her fingers on her elbow. If _he _could go on a date, so could she, right? She was pretty—not like, Crumbelina or Minty level gorgeous, but pretty—she was smart, she was…not exactly well liked, but the past six months had taught her that a young, pretty woman didn't necessarily need to be well liked to get attention.

Then, inspiration struck. Who was that guy who'd talked to her on the _Street Fighter _monorail, back when she'd gone to a Thursday Fight? The one from _Virtua Cop_—Michael, that was it. He'd been flirting with her, which she'd instinctively known at the time but hadn't really known how to deal with. He hadn't asked her out, which she appreciated, but she'd seen him looking at her sometimes. Maybe he was sort of sweet and dopey? Well, whatever. It was worth a try. In fact, she'd find him and ask him out right now. Yeah. And then King Candy would see that she was like, in demand. Not that it mattered, it wasn't like she was trying to make him _jealous_. That was stupid. There was no reason to make him jealous.

She grabbed her jacket and pulled it on, determined to find Michael Hardy and ask him out.

* * *

Taffyta gave her hair one last brush, checked her eyeliner again, and applied a fresh coat of lipstick. When she'd found Michael the previous night, he'd happily agreed to a date. It had been kind of too easy, actually. They were going to some restaurant in his game—he'd suggested it, and she didn't really care, so she'd said yes.

Before she left the bathroom, she pursed her lips at herself in the mirror. She looked pretty. She just wished her hips were slimmer. Her whole bottom half in general could stand to be several sizes smaller, but it wasn't like there was anything she could do about it. The programmers had coded her this way and she was stuck with it. Unless, of course, she went into the code vault and made a few cosmetic changes…but something always stopped her. So whatever, she'd just try to learn to like her figure.

With a deep breath, she headed out of the bathroom and clattered down the stairs. As she grabbed her jacket and slipped on the pink heels that Crumbelina had let her borrow, King Candy appeared at the top of the stairs as well. As he descended, he asked cheerfully, "More shooting with Sergeant Psychopath?"

"No," she said brightly. "I'm going on a date too."

His foot paused about five inches above the next step and he had to catch himself before he fell headfirst down the stairs. "What?" he asked. "Since when?"

Still smiling—and maybe fluttering her eyelashes a little more than necessary—she said, "Since Michael Hardy said he wanted to take me out to dinner. You know, from _Virtua Cop?_" She didn't think this really qualified as a lie, since, after all, Michael _had _said he wanted to take her out to dinner. It just happened to have been after she'd already asked if he wanted to go out.

"Oh." He continued down the stairs, looking at a loss. "Is he nice?"

Truthfully, Taffyta didn't really know, but she shrugged and said, "Yeah, sure."

He snorted, then flicked a wrist. Maybe she hadn't been convincing. "If he's not, don't bother. You know you're too good for most of the idiotsth in this arcade."

Her face flushed and she hoped her makeup hid it. "They're not _all _idiots." Actually, they kind of were, but she couldn't very well admit that she agreed with him and then in the same breath say, _bye, heading out for my date with a moron now!_

"Mm," he said noncommittally. "Well, have fun. See you tomorrow if I'm out late."

"Likewise," she said, arching an eyebrow.

He chuckled and waved to her as she left. For a second, she almost turned back around and told him that he looked nice, but then at the last second she thought it might just come off the wrong way.

Michael and her were meeting outside _Virtua Cop_, and when she arrived he was already waiting there for her. The dopey smile that she'd first noticed on the train to _Street Fighter _was on his face as he said, "Wow, you look great." It surprised her how nice that was to hear and she smiled. "Did you do something different with your hair?"

Running a hand through it, she said, "Er, no." There _wasn't _much she could do with her hair. It was fine and stick-straight and too short to really style. Crumbelina could have done something with it, probably, she always seemed to know what to do to bring out the best in everyone's features; she'd been making clothes for her and Minty to go to _DDR_ and all the characters there were always really impressed by her designs and—

She took a breath. That wasn't important. Not that he seemed to notice her distraction, he was still looking at her with that dopey smile on his face, and he asked, "Ready to eat dinner?"

"Yeah," she said, following him into the _Virtua Cop _outlet. There was a subway train sitting there waiting, which they got on. When they chose spots, Michael let his leg touch hers. Her instinct was to move away, but she was on a date, right? She was supposed to like this guy.

She wondered if King Candy had seen them together.

"I think you're really gonna like this place," Michael said. "Best Italian in Virtua City, no one does alfredo like Tony."

When he looked at her expectantly, she realized she needed to say something. _Right_, you had to make small talk on a date! It suddenly occurred to her that she'd never made small talk in her entire life. Everyone that she knew, she'd either been programmed to have always known, or she'd skipped over the small talk phase with. "I've never had Italian food," she said.

"What? How is that possible? Oh man." He laughed and touched her arm. "Your mind's going to be blown."

She raised her eyebrows. "That good, huh?"

"Way better."

With a smile, she said, "Okay, well, it better live up."

He laughed again and she smiled smugly. This was easier than she'd thought it was going to be. They chatted the rest of the way to the game and as they strolled to the restaurant, Michael telling her about his job and his partner James. _Virtua Cop _was cleaner than she'd expected it to be. The streets were wide and she had to crane her neck to see the tops of the skyscrapers. The NPCs wandering around all greeted Michael like an old friend, even though Taffyta assumed these were the people that he spent all day shooting. Oh well, just a job, she guessed. She was glad she lived in a game where she didn't have to kill her coworkers constantly. Sure, they died all the time in _Sugar Rush_, sometimes at each other's hands, or at least power-ups, but it just…felt different.

The restaurant had a red and white striped awning over its front door and was called…Tony's. Well, _Virtua Cop _wasn't exactly the most original game in the arcade. The host slapped Michael on the back when they walked in and seated them right away at a private table near the back of the restaurant. "I know it's not fancy," Michael said, "but like I said. Best Italian in Virtua City. Probably in the whole arcade."

"If I like it, maybe I'll have to try making it myself," Taffyta said, tucking her dress under her thighs as she sat down.

"Oh yeah? You cook?" Michael asked her.

With a shrug, she said, "Sometimes. It's something I do with Felix. Fix-It Felix, you know."

"Sure," Michael said. "Everyone knows Fix-It Felix. Real nice guy. Didn't him and Sergeant Calhoun adopt all you racers when _Sugar Rush _got unplugged?"

"Yeah." She leaned an elbow on the table. Michael couldn't take his eyes off her and it felt really good. Going out with him had been a good idea—it was really nice to be paid attention to as, well, like, a woman, not just a friend. "Not like, officially, but they're still kind of my parents. Tamora and I go shooting in _Hero's Duty _a few times a month."

Michael smiled, but it was a little too close to patronizing for her. All of her good feelings about this date hit a brick wall, and she had to tell herself not to get annoyed. "Really? You? Shooting?"

Taffyta arched an eyebrow. "What, you don't think a girl can shoot?"

That dopey smile again. She found herself somewhat mollified. "Nah, of course not. Janet's on the force, and Sergeant Calhoun's no slouch. You just don't seem like the type."

She opened her mouth to respond that he barely knew her, and for his information there were probably a lot of things that she did that would surprise him, but at that moment, the waiter came by. "Hey, Rage! What can I get for you, the usual?"

"Hey, Joe!" Michael said, slapping the waiter on the back. "The usual for me, and an alfredo for the lady. She's never had it, can you believe it?"

So he was…ordering for her. Was that supposed to be romantic or something? Or like, a nice gesture? Because it was most definitely neither. But they were talking so much that she didn't have a chance to get a word in edgewise, and then the waiter left, and Michael was smiling at her again. Was there something kind of…vacant in that smile?

"Tell me about _Sugar Rush_!" he said. "What's it like living in a game where everything's made of candy?"

"I mean, the obvious," she said. "Pretty sweet."

That made him laugh. If his smile was sort of vacant, there was definitely a fakiness to his laugh, like he was trying extra hard to convince her that he was fun and liked joking around. "Good one!" Two glasses of red wine arrived at that moment, which for a second she just stared at. At what point had they ordered wine? How did he even know she _liked _red wine? Frankly she had no idea if she liked it. Well, fine, she'd have to drink some. A contrary part of her hoped she hated it. The fact that he'd ordered it without asking her really bugged her, but she grudgingly took a sip.

It was alright. Ugh, fine, it was actually pretty good.

"You know what I don't get, though?" Michael asked.

She swirled her wine around in her glass. "Let me guess. What kind of fuel our karts run on?" Everyone _always _wanted to know. Was it really that interesting?

With a laugh, he said, "Actually no, but now I'm wondering."

"Trade secret," she said with a smirk.

He took a gulp of his wine. "What I was gonna say, was, I don't get how you can be such great friends with Turbo."

The sip of wine she had in her mouth soured immediately. She swallowed and set the glass down with a harder clink than she'd meant to. For a second, she considered changing the subject. The whole point of this date was to…well, it was…it was _not _to defend her relationship with King Candy. She picked the wine up again and took a swig of it, then another, until the glass was empty. A hot streak of anger burned through her and she clenched her fists in her lap. "Why?" she said.

Their food arrived. Good, maybe it would distract him from this conversation. Most people outside _Sugar Rush_ just didn't bring Turbo up when they talked to Taffyta. They preferred to pretend he didn't exist, which she guessed was better than active hostility. Whether or not King Candy agreed was open to interpretation. He wanted to be loved, not despised, but he also hated being ignored.

No such luck, though. Michael picked up his spoon and fork and used the spoon to help him twirl spaghetti around the fork. Taffyta stared. Was that how you were supposed to eat it? It looked stupid, like something a kid would do, though even as a nine-year-old she wouldn't have done that. As he twirled, he said, "You mean why do I ask?"

She took a bite of her alfredo. Damn, it actually _was _really good. She'd kind of wanted to hate it. After swallowing, she replied, "No. Why don't you get how we can be such great friends?" There was just the slightest buzz of alcohol in her head, and she knew she shouldn't have downed her glass of wine so quickly when she barely drank.

Michael looked at a loss. "I thought it was obvious," he said.

"Nope," she said, her tone bright and hard. "Not at all. Why don't you elaborate?"

There was a flustered look on his face. He reached for his glass of wine, but his hand knocked into it and it toppled over, sending its contents flooding over the table and straight into Taffyta's lap. "Oh—shit—I mean, sorry, wow, I'm really sorry, Taffyta, god, that was really dumb. Let me get something for you to clean up—"

"No, no, it's fine, I'll just use the bathroom." She got up, her chair scraping loudly. Having a few minutes by herself was perfectly fine.

The wine stain looked like blood, like she'd been shot or something. A stupid thought popped into her head, that she probably looked like a more realistic gunshot victim than the NPCs in this game during arcade hours, but she shook it off. As she looked at herself in the mirror, she _did _feel kind of like a victim. Why couldn't this have gone well? Why couldn't she be having a good time right now? Why were all the men she involved herself with such self-centered assholes? Michael was no Malcolm, as in creepy-virus Malcolm, slipped-her-drugs Malcolm, borderline-sexual-predator Malcolm. He was like…the version that everyone thought was a good guy.

Taffyta leaned on the sink. It wasn't that he _wasn't _a good guy. Well, probably. She didn't know him, even after the last hour and a half in his company. A lump rose in her throat as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Yeah, _that _was exactly what she needed, to start sobbing in the bathroom in Tony's, Virtua City's finest Italian food. She didn't even know why she wanted to cry. What a disaster.

Drawing in a deep breath made the lump loosen. It didn't do anything about the wine stain, of course, but _Sugar Rush's _regeneration code would take care of that.

When she returned to the table, Michael jumped up and pulled her chair out for her in an overly gentlemanly move that what, was supposed to make her forget that he'd been about to trash her best friend? The rest of dinner went smoothly, though, and when they finished, he said, "So, I have kind of a surprise for you, if that's okay."

Oh. She'd sort of thought this was over, but a surprise was intriguing. "What?" she asked.

He grinned and led her outside. There was an squad car sitting there. "Thought you might like to take one of our rides for a spin," he said proudly. Ugh, of course, _of course_ he had to cocoa butter her up with the prospect of driving. He got points for knowing the way to her heart, but she supposed it wasn't much of a mystery.

"Are you serious? You're going to let me drive that?" she asked, putting a hand on her hip.

"Sure!" His smile faltered. "You're a good driver, right? I just assumed, people say you're one of the best racers in _Sugar Rush_…"

At this, she couldn't help grinning. "Um, yeah. Duh, of course I am. Are the keys already in there?"

He looked delighted by her enthusiasm. "Yeah. Hop in, she's all yours!"

Grinning even wider, Taffyta ran around to the driver's side and slid into the seat. Michael got in next to her and for the next forty-five minutes, she tore around the game. Driving an actual car was way different than a kart; the difference in power was obvious and not in a bad way. On one stretch of highway, she held the pedal down to see how fast she could go. When the speedometer needle wouldn't go any higher than 125, Michael laughed and said she was going to burn out his engine. Reluctantly, she slowed back down, and soon after that she pulled back into the parking spot in front of the restaurant.

As they got out, she said, "That was amazing. Seriously, thanks. I've never actually driven a real car before."

"Well, you can come back anytime and drive. I can probably find something that goes faster, too."

Ooh, that was tempting. But she knew she didn't want to come back here, so she just smiled and said, "Thanks." Would he get the hint?

Michael smiled. "Yeah, of course. I'm glad you had fun." They stood there for a second, and then, without warning, he leaned down and brought his face close to hers, his lips parted. A blast of garlicky breath hit her in the face. In horror, she leaned back to keep as much space between them as possible. "What are you _doing?_" she demanded.

As he straightened back up, he looked confused. "Uh, kissing you?" he said.

"Well, what if I don't want to kiss _you?_" she asked, affronted.

"Don't you?"

"I don't know, you didn't give me any time to think about it!" She could hear her voice getting higher with nerves. God, no, she absolutely did _not _want to kiss him; his mouth was weird, he wasn't really that cute, and he had that nondescript, booming fake laugh that so many guys had. Like, did they think if it was deep and hearty enough, they'd convince whoever they were talking to that they had a personality? But it was more than that, it was that he was…_dull_. There was no spark in his eyes. When she looked in them, there was nothing there.

He was staring at her expectantly, and then he asked, "Did you think about it?"

"Yeah," she said decisively. At that, he smiled and leaned towards her again. She shoved him away and snapped, "Hey! I meant I _thought _about it, and no, I don't want to."

At that, his face fell. "Didn't you have fun?"

_Which part_, she wanted to ask. _Where you spilled wine on me or where you insulted my best friend?_ "I don't think we should see each other again," she said. "But thanks for dinner. And for letting me drive."

Without waiting for a response, she turned and strode away, the pink pumps that Crumbelina had lent her clicking on the sidewalk. She couldn't wait to get out of them, thank god she'd left her real shoes in Pink Lightning.

"What did I do?" he yelled at her, but she ignored him.


	3. Chapter 3

King Candy wasn't home when she got back. She wasn't surprised. His date was probably going well, _he _was probably having fun. Kula probably wanted to kiss him. Maybe he wouldn't come home at all. The thought made her ill.

Taffyta watched the smiling strawberry clock on the living room wall tick and leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. She'd been sitting there for an hour and a half, telling herself she was going to get up and go to bed any minute, and then not moving. This was stupid. This was more than stupid, it was pathetic. She should get up, go for a drive, go meet someone. Why was she even sitting here waiting, anyway? What, was she like, worried?

_Don't play dumb, you know why you're sitting here._

Her eyes drifted to the door. She wished King Candy had been more specific about when he'd be back. Not like she'd asked. And not like he owed her anything like that. He was an adult—well, obviously, he'd always been the adult between the two of them. _She _was the one who didn't know what she was doing. It felt like pretending, all of it. Even though at the same time, it all felt totally natural. Most days she felt like she'd figured out how to be twenty-five, but then suddenly, everything would be just as confusing as it was the day she'd woken up to the upgrade. And the most confusing thing of all was the fluttery, twisty feeling in her stomach when King Candy was around.

When Michael had asked why she was friends with him, she'd wanted to put her fist through that dumb, dopey smile. She was sick and tired of people thinking they could insult him straight to her face. They could say what they wanted behind her and King Candy's backs—and they definitely did, all the time, often not very quietly—but she wasn't going to sit there and listen to him get trashed when he was a million times smarter and more interesting than every other guy in the arcade. _Sugar_, just thinking about him was making her stomach flutter.

It didn't make _sense_. He was her best friend; she'd known him for twenty-three years and she was so used to thinking of him as just…well, her friend. It had never occurred to her that he could be anything else, and why would it? But now, _now _she wasn't a kid anymore, now she had that fluttery feeling and she didn't like that he was going out with some other woman, and the idea of him kissing anyone felt like the worst thing imaginable.

She knew she was being dramatic. In the past year and a half, her game had been unplugged and King Candy had almost died. _Those _things were the worst thing in the world. Him kissing some random woman that had barely been in the arcade for like, a month, that didn't even rate on the scale of bad things.

Except it did. It was unthinkable.

She buried her face in her hands. Whatever this was, she wanted it to go away. Except then King Candy would smile at her, and she didn't. Her chest filled with aching longing and she didn't even know what she was longing for.

A kart engine thrummed in the distance and she lifted her face out of her hands. Her heart beat just a little faster, and she didn't need to see the kart or watch it pull into the garage to know it was the Royal Racer. She'd known the sound of his kart for years.

After a few minutes, the door swung open, springs squeaking, and he walked in. The look on his face was pensive, but then he caught sight of her. "Oh, Taffyta, hi." He kicked the door closed behind him and smiled easily at her. Her stomach flipped. Dammit. _Dammit. _"I didn't think you'd be back so early."

She really should have figured out something to do so it wasn't so obvious that she'd been sitting there in silence waiting for him to come back. Could he tell? But why would he even think that? "Why wouldn't I be back?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "Your date."

"Oh! Um, yeah."

"I take it thingsth didn't go well."

"What? Ha!" She flipped her hair and leaned back into the couch, trying to look cool and unconcerned. "It went _awesome_, for your information."

"Oh yeah?" He leaned his arms on the back of the chair and looked at her. "Well, my mistake."

Crossing one leg over the other, she said, "Looks like it."

"When's the next date?"

She spluttered and a smile twitched at his mouth. Flopping back into the couch cushion, she said, "Okay, _fine_. It wasn't awesome at all. In fact, going out with him might go down as one of my dumbest decisions ever." She sighed and raised her eyebrows at him. "I guess _your _date went well."

"Oh." He waved a hand. "Fan_tastic_, could barely tear myself away, you know."

Her face fell, she _knew _it did, even though she was trying her hardest to look like she didn't really care either way how his date had gone. And she could tell that he caught her reaction from the way his eyes lingered on her face and the flicker in them as he tried to read her.

There was a silence. The clock seemed really loud suddenly. Then, with a sigh, his shoulders drooped and he said, "I mean, maybe it could have gone better."

She looked at him questioningly, her heart suddenly soaring with hope. What were the chances he didn't notice? Coming over to the sofa and sitting down, King Candy added, "Alright, maybe a lot better. I believe the phrase is 'train wreck,' if you want to know the truth."

"I bet it wasn't that bad," she said consolingly. "Not as bad as mine."

With a snort, he said, "Try me."

Her arms still crossed over her chest, she said darkly, "Well, he tried to kiss me. And he didn't take a hint when I wasn't into it. Not until I like, practically hit him over the head with the fact." It occurred to her that she'd just opened herself up to the possibility that their positions had been reversed, and that _he'd _been the one rejected for a kiss, and milk duds, she didn't want to hear about that.

But he just looked irritated. "There are _cues_, what an idiot, you don't just _go _for it; and I suppose it'sth too much to think he'd do something as simple as _ask _you if you wanted to?"

That made her feel a little better about the possibility of him kissing Kula, though she guessed it didn't really tell her one way or the other what had happened. Shrugging, she said, "I guess at least I got the whole awkward first date experience out of the way. It kind of felt like a rite of passage that I hadn't gone through yet."

He chuckled and leaned back. "Well, speaking from experience, it doesn't exactly get more fun with either age or repetition. Not that I've had many awkward first datesth, you know, I'm _extremely _charming, very smooth, this one was definitely an outlier. _Way_ outside the normal distribution." He fiddled with his bow tie, then glanced at her. "She was kind of boring, to be honest. Kula."

"So was Michael. _Really _boring, actually."

Holding up a hand, he said, "How about thisth—I won't say I'm not surprised if you won't?"

Taffyta smirked. "Didn't you just say it?"

He waved a hand. "Plausible deniability. For both of us."

That made her laugh. The date with Michael receded, like she was washing a bad taste out of her mouth with this moment. _This _was what it should be like to…like, well, _be _with someone. _This _was easy. This was natural.

Something, maybe the ease of the moment, possessed her to ask, "So what's, like, your ideal woman, then? What's she like? If Kula doesn't fit the bill."

He raised an eyebrow. "Or ideal man."

"Oh!" she said, surprised. "You…you're…" She cut herself off before she sounded even more stupid. Or even worse, like she had a problem with it.

"Suppose I could be trendy and say I prefer not to use labelsth, but bi is the word you're looking for."

"I didn't know that."

"Well Taff," he said, his eyebrow still raised, "to be fair, it didn't seem like it ever really occurred to you that I might have romantic interest in anyone."

Taffyta shrugged, which was about as much of an acknowledgment of this that she was willing to own up to. "Okay, so, it might be an ideal guy, then?"

He waved a hand. "Maybe. Statistically unlikely though, you know?"

She wasn't sure she did, but she nodded anyway.

For a moment, he was silent, drumming his fingers on the arm of the couch. "You know, there was a time where I probably would have said…oh, I don't know, red hair, or a six-pack, or something. I dunno. You care about different things when—I mean, maybe it'sth just that I can't be picky, but I don't think so, I think I'm just more mature, if you can believe it, oy, what a thought, but anyway, when attention's easy to come by and everyone loves you…" He stopped talking at the look on her face. She guessed she probably looked overwhelmed. Breathing in, he held his hands out as if to physically slow down his train of thought. "I just want someone to laugh at my jokes. And keep up with me, intellectually speaking. And…well, respect me. Sounds corny, but…" With a glance at her, he added, "Sometimesth I think the only time anyone ever respected me was when they all thought I was someone else."

There was such a forlorn note in his voice that her heart ached. "That's not true," she said bracingly. "I respect you."

He flashed a smile at her, the sadness in his eyes gone as fast as it had come. "I know." Reaching over and ruffling her hair, he said, "Listen, I've said it before, but it's worth repeating, you're a better friend than I deserve."

At these words, it felt like her entire chest turned to toffee. It had never hurt so much to be called a friend.

"Well." He patted her knee and bounced to his feet. "Lucky in cards, unlucky in love, right? Though I'm not sure if gambling on reprogramming this game really countsth as a win for me, what do you think?"

She snorted and didn't answer, waving as he climbed the stairs to go to bed. Then, he stopped and cocked his head.

Taffyta heard it too. "That's _Litwak_," she said. "What's he doing here so early?" It was eight o'clock on Monday morning, and the arcade wasn't open at all on Mondays.

Shaking his head, King Candy hopped back down the stairs and opened the front door so they could hear Litwak better. It was night in _Sugar Rush_, so it was easy to see through the screen.

"Yep, I've owned this place for over forty years now," Litwak's voice was saying. Taffyta poked her head out the door and both of them looked up at the screen. What was going on? Litwak almost never came in so early, and if he did, it was because a broken game was being taken by the salvage guy, or he had something mundane to do back in his office. There definitely hadn't been an unplugging, and clearly he wasn't in his office. "Opened up back in 1980. Crazy, huh? No Playstation, no internet, no iPhones. Seems like another life sometimes."

A different voice said, "I wasn't even born until '87."

"Geez." Litwak laughed. "You sure know how to make a fella feel old. Guess that's why I'm talking to you, though, right? It's getting time to sell this old place."

Taffyta stood bolt upright and slammed the crown of her head into King Candy's chin. He yelped in pain but then bit his lip, his eyes watering, and remained silent so they could both keep listening.

"So, you boys like arcade games?" Litwak went on. Somebody moved in front of the cabinet—not Litwak, somebody else. It looked like a youngish man, maybe the one who'd been born in 1987?

"Who doesn't?" someone laughed from off to the side.

The man in front of the screen shrugged. "I have a PS4 at home."

"Yeah, consoles. You know, they told me I wouldn't last once the NES came out. But here we are, still going strong." Litwak's hand came into view as he rested it on the back of _Sugar Rush's _seat. "If you bought this place, you'd turn a good profit. The regulars keep coming in."

"Oh." The voice out of view sounded embarrassed. "Sorry—we weren't clear. We're not looking to buy your arcade to run it."

The man they could see put his hands on his hips. "We want to put up condos on the lot next door. We'd build the parking garage here."

There was a silence. Taffyta felt the blood leaving her face and she didn't dare look at King Candy.

"A parking garage," Litwak said. He sounded shocked. Good old Litwak. He'd tell them to take a hike. Like he'd ever sell to people who just wanted to tear their home down to build a parking lot? "Well." Then he said, "Then I guess we should be looking around outside."

"If you don't mind," one of the men said, still sounding apologetic.

They moved off and the conversation became too quiet to hear. Taffyta felt ill. The possibility of Litwak selling the arcade—of Litwak's _closing_, permanently, had never crossed her mind once in all the years she'd been alive.

King Candy was still staring up at the screen, even though there was nothing to see. His face was pale and there was fear in his eyes. Maybe it had never crossed his mind either. When Taffyta hugged her arms around herself, he looked at her, swallowed, and said, "Sweet dreamsth for me, I guess."

She wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came out except a wordless noise. With a bitter twist of a smile, he trudged up the stairs. Taffyta waited until she heard the door connecting to the two wings of the house close, and then she went upstairs to her own room. Her movements were automatic as she changed into her nightgown and as she climbed into bed, she knew she'd fall into an exhausted sleep immediately.

* * *

Except she didn't.

An hour later, she was still lying there, now wide awake, eyes open, staring at the ceiling in the darkness. Her mind couldn't stop replaying what they'd overheard. Would Litwak really do it? And how would they know when it was happening? Would there be any warning or would he just pull all their plugs? Or maybe the power would just get shut off to the building, and there wouldn't even be time to escape to Game Central Station.

Her stomach twisted into such a tight knot that she thought she might vomit, and she turned on her side and curled up. It helped a little with the nausea, but did nothing to stop her racing mind. Was the time they had left going to be measured in months or days? Or was she blowing this _way _out of proportion, and nothing was going to come of it at all?

Taffyta sat up. She couldn't sleep, and if she couldn't sleep, she had a feeling King Candy couldn't either. If she was terrified about the prospect of getting unplugged, he was probably climbing the walls in barely-contained panic. She probably shouldn't have left him alone in the first place.

Slipping out of bed, she ran a hand through her hair and opened her bedroom door. The house was dark and silent. She hadn't heard him walk down the stairs while she'd been lying there wide awake, anyway.

She crossed the landing and opened the door to the connecting hallway, only to yelp in shock and leap back as she came face to face with King Candy right on the other side. Putting a hand to her chest and feeling her heart pounding, she said, "Pixy sticks. Sorry. I know we can't really have heart attacks, but sometimes you wonder."

He withdrew the hand that had been extended to open the door. Rolling the sleeves of his pajamas up, he said, "Well, great mindsth and everything. What do you need?"

With a sigh, she said, "I couldn't sleep."

Smiling mirthlessly, he said, "Me either."

They looked at each other for a long moment, and then King Candy jerked his head. "C'mon. Let's get some fresh air."

He headed for the door to the deck and Taffyta followed him. When they got outside, they leaned against the railing, neither of them speaking. Standing with him made her feel calmer and like she could actually think about what they'd heard. It helped that it was a clear, beautiful night. The stars were shining, bright and cold in the dark dome of the autumn sky, and there was a faint hint of woodsmoke in the air.

"I don't think he'll do it," she finally said. "He loves this place."

King Candy laced and unlaced his fingers. In anyone else, something like that would make her nervous. Maybe she was just used to his constant edginess. "He's getting old. Eventually he's going to have to do _something_ with thisth place. Better than dying on the job, right? Maybe he wants to enjoy his golden years, can you blame him? Retire, spend some time on the beach or something, think about it, he's on his feet all day, he must have _great_ shoes—"

Taffyta put her hand on his shoulder and he stopped talking, then smiled humorlessly. "We don't have to worry about it," she said. "There's nothing we can do, right? So we _shouldn't _worry about it."

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

"A little bit of both."

She squeezed his shoulder and he patted her hand, though he didn't look at her. As his eyes focused on the distant dark, he said, "I make plansth. I can't _not _worry. You plan for things, that's how you keep the really bad stuff from happening."

"Yeah, but sometimes all the planning in the world can't stop something bad from happening," she said quietly. He made a noise, acknowledging the truth of this without actually admitting to it. Which one of them _was _she trying to convince? The idea of the arcade being closed was still making her ill. When _Sugar Rush _had been unplugged, those days of sitting around not racing, thinking, in fact, that she was never going to race again, had been terrible and endless. If she had to do that for the rest of her life…

Staring up at the stars, she asked, "If the arcade _did _close…do you think it'd be better to go down with the ship?"

He snorted. "Taffyta, I've _never _thought it'd be better to go down with the ship. That'sth what life rafts are for."

Twisting to look at him, one arm resting on the railing and her other hand still on his shoulder, she said, "But…where would we go?"

With a flick of his wrist, he said, "The internet."

Taffyta sighed. "I guess. Even though that sounds horrible."

He traced his finger in loops along the railing, staring out at Strawberry Fields. There was a chill in the breeze. Winter was coming. "Better than dying here."

Neither of them said anything. The fact that Taffyta had been worrying about a bad date and King Candy having a girlfriend only hours ago seemed ridiculous. Her hair blew across her face as the breeze picked up, and she shivered in her nightgown.

Straightening up and removing his hand from hers, King Candy looked at her and said, "You're cold, let's go in. Want to have breakfast? I'll make…well, something."

Taffyta smiled at him and reached for the door. Why not? She wasn't sure she'd actually be able to eat, but at least it would be something else to think about. Then, at that moment, the lights turned back on in the arcade. Someone was talking, and as the voice came closer, she realized it was Litwak. Neither of them moved a muscle. Was this it? Was Litwak agreeing on the sale?

Litwak paused in front of _Sugar Rush_, his hands on his hips as he surveyed the arcade in silence. There didn't seem to be anyone with him. "A parking lot," he said, then chuckled. "What do you think, everyone, does this place have a few years left in her?"

"_Yes_," Taffyta said. She knew he wasn't really asking them, that he didn't have any idea how many lives he held in his hands. At her side, King Candy crossed his arms over his chest.

Shaking his head, Litwak said, "Well, maybe there'll be some new customers in those fancy condos. I don't think I'm exactly ready for retirement, anyway."

He moved out of sight and Taffyta's shoulders sagged in relief as she covered her face with her hands. King Candy laughed in delight and rocked back on his heels, grabbing her into a tight hug. As her arms went around him, her heart pounded in happiness and—something else, something unrelated to the news that they _weren't _going out of business, after all. The feeling of his arms around her was the most perfect thing she'd ever experienced, and it ended too quickly as he pulled away and swung the door open to go back inside.

"Breakfast?" he asked, gesturing. His smile was so bright that it made her chest ache.

She smiled back. "Yeah."

The fluttering in her stomach was back. And suddenly she knew exactly what it was. This rollercoaster of a night had brought it all into crystal-clear focus, and looking at him as he stood there holding the door open for her, she knew she couldn't lie to herself about this anymore. He was much more than a friend to her, wasn't he? The butterflies in her stomach, the way his smile lit up a room, the way no one was more interesting or funny than him—you didn't think that way about a friend.

Taffyta stepped inside. Just when she thought she was figuring out how to be an adult, life threw _this _at her. She watched him as he walked down the stairs, a happy bounce in his step. Well. She supposed, over the years, she'd sort of gotten used to unexpected routes in the road her life had taken. And if this happened to be one of the biggest, most unexpected of them…hey, she could handle it.

She thought of his smile again and felt her knees go a little weak.

Sure. She could handle it.


End file.
